Thursday, November 13, 2003
WELCOME MIDLINE READERS! Come on in -- I'm glad you are here!
Scroll down for more information on Blogs and Blogging in the entries for 10/15, 10/7 and 9/30. To learn about using RSS news aggregators, see the 11/19 entry.
Earlier this week in this very blog, I complained that some of my links from my earlier "Add to Favorites" were already "dead." Well, this isn't so uncommon. A study to be published in Science found a notable number of unavailable Internet references in the bibliographies of journal articles in three major journals. Here is the press release describing the article “Going, Going, Gone: Lost Internet References.”
Feel free to send your comments on this blog to me!
Clare Leibfarth "The Sensible Shoe Librarian"
LEIBFARTH@exchange.oucom.ohiou.edu
Scroll down for more information on Blogs and Blogging in the entries for 10/15, 10/7 and 9/30. To learn about using RSS news aggregators, see the 11/19 entry.
Earlier this week in this very blog, I complained that some of my links from my earlier "Add to Favorites" were already "dead." Well, this isn't so uncommon. A study to be published in Science found a notable number of unavailable Internet references in the bibliographies of journal articles in three major journals. Here is the press release describing the article “Going, Going, Gone: Lost Internet References.”
Feel free to send your comments on this blog to me!
Clare Leibfarth "The Sensible Shoe Librarian"
LEIBFARTH@exchange.oucom.ohiou.edu
Monday, November 10, 2003
LESSON LEARNED:
Maybe this is some corollary of Murphy's Law...just as soon as you publish an article recommending websites, some of those websites will just plain "die."
One link in my Summer 2003 "Add to Favorites" has not been updated in quite a while (Business Daily Review) and another is being updated only sporadically (Human Nature Review). Just my luck!
Some of my "favorites" are still out there going strong...I still get my daily e-mail updates from SciTech Daily Review and I check Arts & Letters Daily a few times a week when I need a humanities "fix."
So, dear readers, if you notice that any of the links that I suggest to you are dead or dying, just email me: LEIBFARTH@exchange.oucom.ohiou.edu.
Maybe this is some corollary of Murphy's Law...just as soon as you publish an article recommending websites, some of those websites will just plain "die."
One link in my Summer 2003 "Add to Favorites" has not been updated in quite a while (Business Daily Review) and another is being updated only sporadically (Human Nature Review). Just my luck!
Some of my "favorites" are still out there going strong...I still get my daily e-mail updates from SciTech Daily Review and I check Arts & Letters Daily a few times a week when I need a humanities "fix."
So, dear readers, if you notice that any of the links that I suggest to you are dead or dying, just email me: LEIBFARTH@exchange.oucom.ohiou.edu.
Sunday, November 09, 2003
Are you interested in using RSS as an alternative to daily news and blog checking?
Best place for the librarian to start learning about RSS is RSS for Non-Techie Librarians by Steven M. Cohen. Another excellent librarian oriented explanation of RSS is the PowerPoint presentation Looking at Content Through RSS Colored Glasses by library blog gurus Jenny Levine and Steven M. Cohen (again). Not much else I can say after you have read through this. This Wired News article is also a great RSS explainer.
A recent article in PC Magazine, RSS News Readers Browse for You, reviews four inexpensive news readers. Another article in the same issue, Getting the News Out, discusses RSS specifications and uses of syndication.
If you don't want to install aggregator software on your PC, you may wish to consider using Bloglines to scan news sources. The feeds are stored on their server and are accessible from the web. Here is a short article explaining its usefulness.
This Yahoo directory lists websites for popular news reader software.
This article in Editor & Publisher and this LLRX article explore the notion of RSS as a spam-proof alternative for e-mail publishers.
Special thanks to Marlene Porter for her assistance in pulling together these web links!
Best place for the librarian to start learning about RSS is RSS for Non-Techie Librarians by Steven M. Cohen. Another excellent librarian oriented explanation of RSS is the PowerPoint presentation Looking at Content Through RSS Colored Glasses by library blog gurus Jenny Levine and Steven M. Cohen (again). Not much else I can say after you have read through this. This Wired News article is also a great RSS explainer.
A recent article in PC Magazine, RSS News Readers Browse for You, reviews four inexpensive news readers. Another article in the same issue, Getting the News Out, discusses RSS specifications and uses of syndication.
If you don't want to install aggregator software on your PC, you may wish to consider using Bloglines to scan news sources. The feeds are stored on their server and are accessible from the web. Here is a short article explaining its usefulness.
This Yahoo directory lists websites for popular news reader software.
This article in Editor & Publisher and this LLRX article explore the notion of RSS as a spam-proof alternative for e-mail publishers.
Special thanks to Marlene Porter for her assistance in pulling together these web links!
Saturday, November 08, 2003
Did you see the lunar eclipse? We had clouds earlier, but it cleared just in time for me to barely miss totality, but I did see the refracted red moon. Very kewl! Even teenager son thought it was worth standing out in the freezing cold to check it out.
All you need to know about the eclipse is here. Click around, the entire NightSky site is very fun.
All you need to know about the eclipse is here. Click around, the entire NightSky site is very fun.
"What are you reading now?" This is the first thing that Larry asks me each time he sees me. He owns the local Domino's Pizza franchise, has seven children and somehow finds the time to be a voracious reader!
So...right now, I am reading Agatha Christie's "Murder in Three Acts" and before that "Murder in Mesopotamia." What started me on this Christie binge? While perusing Arts & Letters Daily a few weeks ago, I followed the link to this article examining Christie's enduring popularity. British journalist Johann Hari calls her "an intensely and relentlessly political thinker," pointing out that "at a time of massive social transformations in areas as fundamental to individual identity as gender, family and class, Agatha offered the soothing balm of Burkean conservatism." I was particularly intrigued by her hostility to feminism. So I thought I would read a few novels and see if I agree with Mr. Hari....
One note, the Sensible Shoe Librarian is reading these Agatha Christie novels in "Large Print." My husband finds this amusing...he makes a big deal about how he is younger than I am -- but only by 4 little months!
On the non-fiction front, I just borrowed Alberto Manguel's "A History of Reading" on interlibrary loan at the county library. So far it is delightful!
So...right now, I am reading Agatha Christie's "Murder in Three Acts" and before that "Murder in Mesopotamia." What started me on this Christie binge? While perusing Arts & Letters Daily a few weeks ago, I followed the link to this article examining Christie's enduring popularity. British journalist Johann Hari calls her "an intensely and relentlessly political thinker," pointing out that "at a time of massive social transformations in areas as fundamental to individual identity as gender, family and class, Agatha offered the soothing balm of Burkean conservatism." I was particularly intrigued by her hostility to feminism. So I thought I would read a few novels and see if I agree with Mr. Hari....
One note, the Sensible Shoe Librarian is reading these Agatha Christie novels in "Large Print." My husband finds this amusing...he makes a big deal about how he is younger than I am -- but only by 4 little months!
On the non-fiction front, I just borrowed Alberto Manguel's "A History of Reading" on interlibrary loan at the county library. So far it is delightful!
Thursday, November 06, 2003
I hope that my blog isn't angry with me! I have neglected you for so many weeks! I am sorry! I don't want my blog to feel like it has been abandoned...like all those dead web sites out there. Are never updated websites "deadwood," or should they be archived?
The reason that I have been neglecting you, dear blog, is that I have been slaving away preparing a lecture for the medical students on Evidence Based Medicine resources. Most of all, I wish to thank all my fellow medical librarians out there who have created some wonderfully useful websites on EBM. Sure makes my life easier!
Here are two resources that I recommended to the students:
I "freely borrowed" ideas like crazy from Jo Dorsch's excellent Evidence Based Medcine website. Thanks Jo!
The Evidence Based Resource Center sponsored by the New York Academy of Medicine Library and the American College of Physicians New York Chapter was beyond useful. Be sure to look at the Teaching & Learning links.
I was suprised to find a lot of "stale" EBM sites out there. This category includes some of the "classics," which are definitely suffering from waning interest by their supporters.
And no wonder we librarians feel overwhelmed sometimes! Did you know that the amount of new information has doubled in the last 3 years? But unhappily, the amount of wisdom in the world does not seem to be increasing...
The reason that I have been neglecting you, dear blog, is that I have been slaving away preparing a lecture for the medical students on Evidence Based Medicine resources. Most of all, I wish to thank all my fellow medical librarians out there who have created some wonderfully useful websites on EBM. Sure makes my life easier!
Here are two resources that I recommended to the students:
I "freely borrowed" ideas like crazy from Jo Dorsch's excellent Evidence Based Medcine website. Thanks Jo!
The Evidence Based Resource Center sponsored by the New York Academy of Medicine Library and the American College of Physicians New York Chapter was beyond useful. Be sure to look at the Teaching & Learning links.
I was suprised to find a lot of "stale" EBM sites out there. This category includes some of the "classics," which are definitely suffering from waning interest by their supporters.
And no wonder we librarians feel overwhelmed sometimes! Did you know that the amount of new information has doubled in the last 3 years? But unhappily, the amount of wisdom in the world does not seem to be increasing...
